 Coming up on DTNS, new tech hits NASCAR, high senses, new U led TVs, and Apple's policy on streaming games confuses the judge. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, May 6th, 2021, a safe day, Mayo in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Austin, Texas, I'm Justin Robert Young. And I'm Roger Chang, the show's producer. We were talking a little bit about cars and gas tanks and etymology on good day internet. If you want that wider conversation, become a member at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Microsoft President Brad Smith announced EU commercial and public sector customers will be able to store and process most of their data within the EU by the end of 2022. Microsoft calls this the EU data boundary for the Microsoft cloud, which will be available as an option across Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365. Microsoft already complies with EU guidelines by letting companies store their own data in the EU and the new plan exceeds legal requirements by including processing of personal data, including data used by Microsoft to provide technical supports. IBM announced a two nanometer node chip. Can't get too much smaller. There's only two nanometers left. Claiming it offers 45% better performance at the same power compared to the current seven nanometer processes out there with a potential density of 333 million transistors per square millimeter. IBM did not announce details on the test chip or even when a two nanometer process would be ready for mass production. But I believe the IBM press release read first. Billboard will publish a new daily chart ranking of the most popular songs in the US based on Twitter conversations, creatively called the Billboard Hot Trending, powered by Twitter. According to Twitter's head of entertainment partnerships, Sarah Rosen, music is the most popular conversation topic on the platform. Twitter also announced new video partnerships to make live and on-demand shows with Billboard, but also with Genius, Refinery29, Tastemade, the MLB, NBC Olympics, and NBC Universal News, the NHL, Ride Games, and the WNBA. Nintendo forecast a 12% drop in sales of the Switch for the financial year ending March 2022 because of an expected lack of parts. Nintendo expects to sell 22.5 million switches this year, but that's compared to 28.8 million last year. Nintendo also reported that it has now sold a total of 84.59 million switches since launch. The security firm Checkpoint Research disclosed a security vulnerability in Qualcomm's mobile station modem used in 31% of smartphones globally, which could allow for a partial backdoor to devices. Qualcomm has released a patch rather to OEMs in December, although it's not clear which vulnerable Android devices are fixed and which ones aren't. In our live Twitch chat right now, Fred 19, 8th, Fred 819 suggested that maybe Twitter and Billboard should call it the American Tweet 40. Smart. All right, let's talk about the FCC, Justin. Indeed, Tom, we will. A multi-year investigation by the New York Attorney General's office confirmed Thursday that some of the US's largest broadband providers funded a campaign to flood the US Federal Communications Commission with fake comments prior to the FCC's 2017 order to roll back open internet guidelines. The report says that out of a total of 22 million comments, fake accounts made up nearly 18 million and 8.5 million were submitted through co-registration where companies promised gift cards and sweepstakes entries to spark interest in the campaign. The companies then filed form responses to the order without the consumers knowing that their names were being used. FCC acting chair Jessica Rosenwurzel said in a statement, today's report demonstrates how the record informing the FCC net neutrality repeal was flooded with fraud. This was troubling at the time because even then, the widespread problems with the record were apparent. Fluent, react to media and opt intelligence were all found to have influenced the FCC's net neutrality rollback and entered into settlements with the attorney general's office requiring the companies to pay more than $4 million. New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that 9.3 million fake comments were set to the FCC in support of net neutrality using false identities and that most of the comments were submitted by a single person, a 19 year old college student using automated software. Well. Yeah. That's a lot of fake news. I don't know, I mean, go ahead, Tom. No, no, you go ahead. I think we're both backing off like beef, beef, beef. Well, I guess when I read this, I'm like, this is some of the most blatant fraud I've heard of in a while. And it sounds like, you know, the Spidey senses have been up since 2017, where everyone was like, something's up with this. So now five years later, there's a bit more concrete evidence that yeah, a lot of fraud was happening. I'm somewhat surprised that several companies that have been linked to being directly involved in this are paying what seems like low fines for this kind of activity. Well, but what is the proper fine for flooding an open comment before a FCC decision? Like obviously this is a decision that meant a lot to a lot of people that are listening to this show, but and certainly for the future of the internet, but how much the open comment even affects the FCC's final decision is something that's probably upward debate. And while certainly there was rank fraud being directed by a lot of these cable companies, it was certainly not at least fully one-sided with one very industrious 19 year old deciding to stuff the ballot box himself. Yeah, the good news is we had a balance of fraud on both sides, a bipartisan amount of fraud in these FCC comments. I look at this, these are big numbers and it is for some people are gonna be like, wow, that's a lot of fraud. But the way I approach it personally is I look at it and I say, okay, but if there weren't any of this fraud would that have changed anything, right? The implication is like, well, this obviously misinformed the FCC and I don't think that that's true. I think Ajit Pai makes the same repeal of the open internet guidelines even if every single one of these comments was true. So I'm glad that the attorney general has gone and caught these companies and said, hey, slap on the wrist, that's not good behavior, you shouldn't do that. I'm in favor of that. I don't think this has nearly the significance to the actual open internet guidelines or the issue of net neutrality that some people would like to make out of it. I totally agree. Well, maybe you'll all agree that new TVs are in the air making a stir. Anybody in the market? Tell me more. I actually am in the market for a new TV at some point. On the affordable end, Amazon has some choices for us announcing the C350 series of fire TVs made by Toshiba which will range from 43 up to 75 inches with support for picture-in-picture and voice remote with Amazon's assistant starting at 350 bucks. All of these TVs offer 4K and HDR10 plus Dolby vision support with the 43 and 50 inch models available for pre-order now, other sizes arriving later this year. Now, more on the high end front, Hisense announced its flagship U9DG 75 inch TV with a 4K dual cell LCD panel offering 2 million local dimming zones at up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness running Android TV with both Dolby vision and Atmos support as well available this summer for $3,500. Yes, it is not cheap. The company claims this provides OLED level contrast not an OLED TV, but OLED level contrast as Hisense though it also calls this collection of its 20 patented technologies ULED different from OLED because the U comes from the combination of ultra wide color gamut, ultra local dimming, ultra 4K resolution and ultra smooth motion rates. Hisense also announced the 8K U800GR to 75 inch 120 Hertz panel running Roku TV with 180 local dimming zones also arriving this summer for $3,199. Yeah. Don't you be misled, this isn't actually an OLED but it does sound like a really good look at TV for sure. Oh yeah, in fact, I don't know. I get sucked in really easily where I'm like, ooh, new and bright and shiny from Hisense. I want the ULED and then I look at the price and I'm like at some point in the future when the price comes down. But yeah, I can't wait to see something like this in real life next time I end up at CES. And somebody who just bought a big stupid television, this is certainly at the high end for what you're gonna pay for this stuff and really Hisense which has by and large been a fairly competitive player at some of the lower price points. I think this is them announcing that they are also a premier television destination especially here in the American market. Yeah. And they've decided to hang with the big folks and come up with weird marketing terms for their LCD televisions. Exactly, right? The sign of a true competitor. Exactly, is it OLED? Is it QLED? Is it ULED? How many more letters can we come up with that'll lead you to the store to buy one? We're gonna get some more details on this kind of thing. Robert Herron's gonna be here next Tuesday to talk about Hisense's value position 4K TVs. Ones that you might be able to afford a little better. And also that Apple TV color calibration utility. We'll get some new information regarding calibrating OLED panels from Robert. So be sure to be on the lookout for that on Tuesday. All right, NASCAR regularly sets the standards for how modified its production cars can be in NASCAR races. The existing standard called Gen 6 was introduced in 2013. Ford, Toyota and Chevy have been working on a new standard and Wednesday, NASCAR formally unveiled the next-gen race car. A lot of it's been out there, but this was the stamp of approval official announcement. Ars Technica's Jonathan Getland notes it includes some interesting car tech. Composite materials replace the aluminum body panels. A large rear diffuser combined with a flat underfloor generates downforce, which is good for error disturbance. May or may not be good for handling. And say goodbye to the five lug nuts when in those pit stops, the wheels are replaced by 18 inch wheels with a single center locking nut, which will make pit stops faster. Under the hood, you got the 5.9 liter Pushrod V8. That's still there, but there's now a transactional transmission instead of being bolted to the engine. Five sequential gears instead of the four H-Box that were there before steering as rack and pinion. Brake calibers are bigger and some race drivers were saying this may mean we can, you know, not worry about the brakes as much. Fully independent double wishbone suspension at all four corners, which may make a difference on road courses. Ford's head of performance, Mark Rushbrook told ours, Technica, this design allows for hybrid electric and all electric systems in the futures, kind of dangling that out there. The first multi-car test of these next gen cars is scheduled for Daytona in August. Amos, I know you follow this stuff and there's some other electronics in next gen that are interesting as well. Yeah, for a long time, what NASCAR has done is they've said they wanna improve driver safety, which means lower horsepower, worse aerodynamics, or they wanna improve competition, which means lower horsepower or worse aerodynamics. And this is the first time they've come out with a car that I think really is they wanna improve the racing, they wanna improve the experience for the drivers and the fans. It's kind of a wholesome, all-encompassing project. And a lot of the things that they're doing with this new generation of car are really interesting. And a lot of people are wondering, especially on this show, like why does this matter to me? NASCAR is regularly a test bed for future technologies in cars. And I think one of the big things with this is that with the new design, they are able to make a transition to hybrid cars, which will improve performance of hybrid cars, battery performance, all that stuff. And everything that these cars go through is analyzed down to the minutia. So it's the biggest test bed we have in the States for future technology. And some of the things are really interesting. Some of the stuff has already appeared in commercial cars, such as there will be a mandated rear-facing camera because the roof is gonna be a couple inches lower. So they won't be able to see over the rear deck lid as well. So they'll have a mandated rear-facing camera. The cockpit, the gauges, the controls, everything in this car are all completely electronic. There's no manual controls except for the brake and the accelerator. And that's gonna lead to a lot of improvements in how we handle our cars, the information we can get from our cars, you'll be able to take your car into the dealership or auto repair location. And they will be able to know for quite a bit of history exactly what's going on where in the car, whether it's tire pressure, the camber, the tire wear, tire temperatures, the gearbox temperatures, all those sensors and stuff like that eventually will make their way into commercial cars that we will all be using. And it's just gonna improve the reliability and the safety of the cars we drive every single day. That's very cool. Ladies and gentlemen, our associate producer, Anthony Lemos. Thanks for bringing in a little extra knowledge there, man. Appreciate that. Hey, folks, if you need a little more extra knowledge on the big tech topics out there like Wi-Fi 6, 5G, et cetera, check out our related show, Know a Little More. Each episode I dive in or sometimes have a guest to help us dive in to a particular tech topic, one that we cover on DTNS, but it kind of helps you know a little more about it. Hence the name. Go check it out, knowalittlemore.com. Before I read this, I just wanna throw this out to the audience. I believe that this story, the Apple Epic lawsuit is going to go on for a long time. One of my favorite things about every incarnation of this show is that recurring bits like patent wars in the past have had a name to them. So I'd like to submit to the audience, we need a catchy name that we can make a sounder for when we read the incremental news that is going to dribble out of this and every subsequent retrial that will come from this battle, including this one, Microsoft's Vice President of Xbox Business Development, Lori Wright, testified in the Apple Epic trial that Microsoft always indeed does sell their Xbox consoles at a loss and has never made a profit on their sale. After the testimony, Microsoft told The Verge, quote, the gaming business is a profitable and high growth business for Microsoft. Prophets are generated in game sales and online service subscriptions, end quote. The Verge's Tom Warren points out that consoles do sell at a loss early in their cycle, but may generate some profit later. The Xbox One S, for instance, was made up of about $324 in parts, but sold for $399. Wright also testified that when Microsoft was trying to get its XCloud iOS app approved by Apple, it cited Netflix and Cloud Gaming Company's Shadows app, which let users access their PC game library remotely. Apple responded by removing the Shadow app from the app store, forcing Shadow to change the app to offer access to the full Windows PC to get reinstated. Apple's objection was that Microsoft's app would let users avoid in-app purchases for games. At one point, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers interjected, quote, I can use Netflix with a native app and I can see lots of different movies or TV shows or whatever, end quote. In response to the judge's questions, Wright confirmed that Microsoft did want to use a subscription model like Netflix, telling the judge that Apple, quote, allows Netflix to do what Netflix does, but it does not allow us to do what Netflix does, end quote. Wright made clear that Microsoft was fine paying 30% commission to Apple, but Apple would not allow it. In fact, Apple's lawyer made a point of like, and we helped you make your web app, didn't we? And we don't get any money from that, do we? And to me, for the case, whether Judge Gonzalez Rogers is confused by this doesn't really have too much impact on where this case is going because it's gonna be about which is a monopoly, the app store or the platform. But I'm with Judge Gonzalez Rogers on this. I still don't understand Apple's point of, man, Microsoft wants to give you 30%, unlike Epic. They're like, yeah, take it, that's fine. We just wanna have one app. And Apple's like, no, you have to have a separate app for every game in your store so that we can take in-app purchases from it. And Microsoft's like, we're not doing in-app purchases. That's Stadia. We just wanna do an app that streams the games like Netflix does with movies and TV shows. You don't make them do a different app for every movie and TV show. Why do you need us to do that? Like if we were doing in-app purchases, fine. That would be a whole different thing, but we're not. And we wanna give you money, but instead you're making us do a web app and not give you money. And it still doesn't quite make sense to me. I think it is internal precedent for them and it is them trying to stop a problem before it happens that if they had it, then they could do it. And then all of a sudden, now you're fighting a different battle than if you just say, no, with games, games gotta be all separate and then them's the rules, we're Apple. I get that, but I don't think this slope is that slippery. I think you'll be fine. I mean, says the guy who's not on the hill. Well, sure, sure. No, it's easy for me to sit here and say that. But I mean, they let Netflix do it, right? Microsoft's app really does just wanna do what Netflix is doing, stream some stuff. It just happens to be video games, that's all. Netflix, well, I mean, I guess that's the streaming of video games while becoming more and more commonplace wasn't more, you know, it hasn't gone back into how people have become really used to streaming for TVs and music, TV shows rather in music and movies. So that might play into this a little bit with Apple saying, no, you pay in per game. You should pay per game. We don't want one app for all the games. But that's a really hard argument to keep going with as clearly there are lots of streaming services for games where you pay a fee of some kind and you have access to more than one game. And also to the point of questioning whether or not Apple was making these decisions with their own self-interest in mind with competing products, it was a while until Apple was in the streaming movies and television game in a way that they have had a very solid platform in terms of selling their cut for streaming iOS games in a way that they really invented that market. But speaking of Netflix, Apple worked hard to convince the company not to remove the in-app payment option on iOS in December 2018. Netflix was concerned that subscribers through iOS were more likely to cancel than subscribers through other ways and a presentation meant to change Netflix's mind. Apple proposed subscriber discounts, a program that launched for devs in 2020 bundling with Apple services and subsidizing App Store ads and other promotional consideration trying to keep that golden goose, keep a lay in eggs. But sadly, that golden goose flew the coop. A couple Google privacy and security stories to note, starting next year, Google will require apps in the Play Store to show what data they collect along with other privacy and security practices that's similar to what Apple requires. Google's trying to say we'll let the devs have more context but it's largely the same thing. The option will be available for developers in Q4. It'll be shown to users starting in Q1 and then be required to be in the Play Store starting in Q2 2022. Google is also pushing for quote, a future where one day you won't need a password at all or what Microsoft calls now. As a result, Google will soon start automatically enrolling users into two step verification. So you won't choose it, it'll just start happening. Kind of what they've already done this with Nest, so they're gonna do it with all Google accounts. An exact role it was not announced, so we don't know when. But when they do it, appropriately configured accounts can receive a prompt from a Google app on their smartphone to verify logins. This is more secure than SMS. However, customers can also use authenticator apps, security keys like Yuba key, as well as that least secure option SMS if they have to. You can also use an Android device as a security key or download the Google smart lock app for iOS. The only difference here that all exists is they're going to turn it on for people and say, let's just start doing this now. You will have to have recovery information on your account, like a phone number or secondary email before they do it, that's what the appropriately configured means. And it's unclear if you can opt out once they enable it, they may just say, no, everybody has to do it this way. For now, unlike Microsoft, you will still be required to know your password. Microsoft does this thing on Windows where you just put in your email address, they email you a code and then you can log in. Google isn't going that far yet. They're taking baby steps here. Yeah, I think that this is smart. I look forward to a world in which passwords are much like AIM and the dial-up modem sound. It's just a fun little hallmark of technology passed. Well, and it's if it works out the way that Google is explaining this is supposed to work, and yeah, you're going to, it's going to be a little bit complicated with those people who don't have smartphones or otherwise are going to get confused by something like this, but having a Google app to authenticate, and yes, there are other options. Many people who listen to the show are already using those other options, but having that to be one step more secure than SMS, which is like 2FA and SMS is better than none at all, of course, but still not as ironclad as it should be. If the rollout works as advertised, it's a great idea. Yeah, Diana Arite is saying, not a fan of forcible opt-in and I'm totally, I totally get that. My gut goes the same way, but I think I make an exception for security. I wouldn't be okay if they said like, you can choose to have a password or not. It's up to you. No, they forced you to have a password. I think this is along those lines of like, no, this is how you securely log into your account now. You have to have a password and this other factor. And eventually, hopefully just two factors, not a password, right? That would be best. Well, I don't know how many people are going to do a long half marathon after the show today, but if you were to, you'd probably want to be as comfortable as possible while doing it. And Adidas is latest model from its high tech running division. The 4D forward spelled like 4D FWD was created in partnership with a 3D printing company, Carbon. A 3D printed midsole and a 4D bow tie lattice pattern is designed to leverage a runner's vertical forces into forward motion, kind of helping propel you forward, reducing braking forces and adding 23% more cushioning for comfortable and longer runs. At least this is what Adidas says it can achieve. Adidas said it also studied athlete data over 17 years, it has a lot of that, plus lab and real world tests with runners in the U.S. to arrive at this specific design. The company and Carbon previously worked on the 4D Futurecraft, which manufactured 3D printed shoes on a large scale and height beast, which follows cool sneakers in general, reports the 4D FWD launches on May 15th in the Adidas app for $236 or 170 pounds sterling with a Tokyo collection launching July 1st and worldwide availability on August 12th. Pushing, pushing, pushing things forward, right? You know? I was super excited about this because I'm not running a half marathon anytime soon, but I do jog almost every day. It's, you know, for some length. And yeah, I have shoes that feel better than other shoes and it really is really important. So everything about this is like, this is so cool. The price tag is pretty steep. I'm not buying running shoes for 250 bucks. You know, I don't care what they're made of, but I love the idea of something being performance enhancing on some level and comfort. Yeah, I'm also a runner and I would say, you know, if you're running every day, like when your shoes are starting to lose that cushion and everything, kind of feel it in your body a little bit more. So anything that lasted longer, I would be willing to spend that amount of money. If I mean, at this point, I pretty much trade out my shoes once every year or so. If I could extend that a little bit, then yeah, I would be fine paying that. Yeah, you know, industrial 3D printing is interesting, right? And I'm tempted to want to say like, hey, just give me the patterns that I could 3D print it on my own 3D printer, but that's not what's going on here. This isn't something that your home 3D printer is likely to do very well, but it does allow them to manage the supplies, interestingly, and tweak them, make them customized, all that. That's cool. All right, let's check out the mailbag. All right, Masha wrote in and said, I'm worried about all of the automated and enhanced translations that I see. I'm not sure if it's a good thing for translations to be so seamless or so automatically generated that we forget we're not hearing the person's actual words. Why? Because those weren't the person's words. Translations are by definition, commentaries. As any bilingual person will tell you, there's no such thing as an exact translation. Many words carry historical overtones that are even harder to translate. If I'm talking about a peanut gallery, I'm talking about people who don't have the right to comment, but the deeper meaning goes beyond simply the cheap seats or commoners, which is itself a term laden with historical meaning. There are also many words that have multiple meanings. When you translate, you need to pick one of those meanings. There are some fascinating studies of biblical translations and how the translator's choices changed the meaning of the text. I predict within five years there'll be a scandal because of an automated translation turned somebody's benign words into something radical or offensive. I'm with Mattia right up to the scandal. Like that is the thing that futurists always, or people predicting the future, like there will be a scandal and there's so rarely a scandal. I mean, you may be right. Maybe this time there will be, but usually it doesn't end up being as bad as you think. But I think this is a still a very good point, which is AI is going to have to get a lot better before they can do really valuable colloquial translations that could translate a whole book and an editor would be able to look it over and say like, yeah, I wouldn't make a whole lot of changes. This is great. That is a skill and human translators are gonna be needed for that sort of thing for a long time. I don't think that obviates AI translations from being useful for kind of mundane everyday stuff though. In addition to tax incentive, Silicon Desert offers plenty of sun for solar power, writes RJ, pointing out that as companies try to become carbon neutral, access to inexpensive land with plenty of sunshine to set up solar farms could be enough of an advantage to offset the cost of dealing with a lack of water. So another perspective on why we might be seeing so many tech companies move into Arizona. Thank you so much for all the Silicon Desert feedback from everybody who's on the ground in the area or just has thoughts. In fact, we love your thoughts and your questions and your comments and all ideas in general. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send that email. We like to shout out patrons at our master and grandmaster levels. We do it every day in fact and today they include Brian Schott, Martin James and Mike Aikens. By the way, we'd like to extra special thanks, Steve Aya-Darola who is one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. Thank you Steve for all the years of support and also big thanks to Justin Robert Young. Justin, how's the new studio coming along? You know, pretty good, pretty good. I had everything set up and then one of my lenses broke so I had to get another lens. But other than that, it is all coming along swimmingly. You can visit it at twitch.tv slash justinareyoung. I'm live streaming Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays talking all the political news of the day and maybe a little silliness just to bring a smile to your face. Excellent. Well, if this show brought a smile to your face, guess what? We're gonna do another one tomorrow. In fact, we're live Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We are back tomorrow with Linda Peralta and Lamar. We'll see you next time. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this brover.